Slowly, We Adjust
by freeze1
Summary: Jane Foster leaves the lab on Friday exhausted, overworked, and petrified that she won't get the grant proposal for her wormhole experiment finished in time to get funding. So, of course she gets rear-ended, because that's just the kind of week she's having. [Thor/Jane]


Slowly, We Adjust

Jane Foster leaves the lab on Friday exhausted, overworked, and petrified that she won't get the grant proposal for her wormhole experiment finished in time to get funding. So, of course she gets rear-ended, because that's just the kind of week she's having.

Barely out of the parking lot, she's reaching reaching over to change the radio station at a red light when an SVU slams into her back bumper and hurls her straight into the steering wheel. (Despite Darcy's tendency to drive like a fleeing convict, Jane had bought a station wagon without airbags when they moved to Boston because the owner knocked two hundred dollars off the asking price. A poor choice, in hindsight.)

The force of impact knocks the wind out of her and for a few moment she is paralyzed, slumped forward across the wheel and gasping for air. When she finally musters the energy to claw for her phone, it's out of batteries - figures - and paramedics are already arriving on the scene. It doesn't occur to her until she's lying in the ambulance, halfway to Mass General Hospital that she has no way of getting in touch with anyone. She can't remember Darcy's number, and Erik - her emergency contact - is giving a lecture series in Amsterdam. Thor...doesn't have a cell phone. Within two days of beaming down to Earth he had managed to crumple her iphone in his bare hands, so she had figured it wasn't worth it. Who needs Siri when you've got Mjölnir, Darcy had said.

The past few weeks have been a relentless dance between blazing new frontiers in her research and keeping her superhero-god-boyfriend occupied and satisfied on a planet he once described as "quaint, from time to time". It's exhausting. Wonderful, to be sure - that he's here, for real this time - but exhausting. And now, Thor is back at the apartment waiting for her to come home, teach him how to use the grill, and then cook five pounds of hamburger meat like she promised. And she won't be there.

She suddenly feels nauseous. But that could just be the painkillers kicking in.

Turns out there was a four car pileup on 95 North that takes precedence over her fenderbender, so it's a few hours before she gets seen. It's a few hours after that before she's released, since Dr. Singh orders a precautionary CT scan just to make sure she hasn't broken a rib. Turns out she hasn't (just bruised two), but her left wrist isn't that lucky. The hours pass in a hazy blur.

When she is finally discharged, the sun's long set. She takes a cab home and spends the ride praying that Thor didn't get impatient and just eat the meat raw (again). But when she gets to the apartment, none of the lights are on.

He isn't home. She sits for a few moments in the dark, willing the muscles in her shoulders to unclench. Darcy's been trying to convince her to take a week off from the lab for a while, now; maybe she's got a point.

Suddenly, the walls are shaking with the force of something bounding up the steps and the door flies open and crashes into the wall and Jane's heart is in her throat and then Thor is standing in the doorway, breathing heavy, thunder in his eyes.

"Jesus," Jane gasps, "you scared the crap out of me."

He slams his palm into the switch and the lights flick on. He blinks at her, stunned, and she shivers at the way his jaw clenches, the way his hands curl into fists at his sides at the sight of her. Sometimes, when he's washing dishes or scooping the neighbor's cat out of a tree in a single bound, she forgets this side of him, the feral intensity of the would-be king.

"Are those...the jeans I bought you?" she asks, because that's all she can think of to say. "They look nice…" He's across the room and kneeling in front of her before she can finish her sentence. His hand shoots towards her and she flinches in spite of herself before it stops, hovering above the bruise on her left cheek.

"You are hurt," he says.

"No, I-" she starts, but the words won't come out. His fingers brush against her skin, tracing the line of her cheekbone with unexpected tenderness coming from a man who can and has lifted a full refrigerator above his head.

"You did not come home," he continues. He looks so tired. "I went searching for you at your place of work. I found your vehicle, destroyed, but you were not inside."

She attempts a laugh. "Destroyed? Oh, man, I was hoping the damage wasn't that bad…"

"Jane." He cups her cheek in his palm, somehow warm despite the November air. She sighs.

"I was in a car accident. A minor car accident," she clarifies. "It's really not that bad, just a broken wrist and some bruises, but the hospital took forever to process me and oh my God."

"What is it?"

"I had the new telescope in the back of the car! It took weeks to persuade the astronomy department to let me borrow it...you said you saw my car, did you happen to see it in there? Where is my car? Do you think we can-"

"Jane." His left hand grips her knee, stilling her, and he looks up at her with such furious, naked fear that she stops cold. Kneeling before her is the man who in the span of a single day saw his mother stabbed and brother sacrificed, the man who relinquished his remaining family, friends, and birthright to stay by her side. And it was this man, not the Prince of Asgard, who waited patiently for her in the humdrum of human tedium only to, when she didn't come home, go out to find her empty, half-crumpled car by the side of the road. He who strides unflinching into oncoming armies can only watch as whole human lifespans pass like the changing seasons. Human mortality is so far beyond his control, and that must terrify him.

She shifts to take his hand in hers. He grips it, tight.

"I'm okay," she says. "My ribs are bruised, and my wrist is broken, and I really, really want my telescope back, but I'm okay. You don't need to worry."

The briefest flicker of a smile. "There is little chance of that."

She wants to tell him she's not going anywhere. If Malekith couldn't bring her down, she's probably going to be around for a while. But the urge to console him concedes to the part of her still unconvinced that this man - who could have anything - would care so much for her.

"I'm sorry I was late. We can still cook the hamburgers, if you want. You might need to flip them, but I can-"

He leans in and rests his forehead against hers. "You need to rest, Jane Foster."

"But you came all this way, and I've been so busy recently, and I promised I would make you hamburgers, and-"

He cuts her off. "I did not come to Earth to eat hamburgers, Jane. I came to be with you. And I cannot do that if you are not here."

That shuts her up.

"You need to rest," he repeats in that tone that makes her think what a good king he would have been. He can be pretty damn convincing.

"Fine," she relents, brushing her nose against his. "But tomorrow, we need to find my car. And make sure the telescope is alright. And get you a cell phone."

He pulls back, puzzled.

"To make sure you can always reach me," she explains. "And I, you. It's not on the level of Heimdal keeping watch, but it's something. It'll allow us to stay in touch, even when we're far away from each other."

"I do not want to be far away from you," he says, plainly, and her heart skips. She bites back a grin.

"Me neither. But let's face it: sooner or later, I'm going to have to stay late for work, or S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to need your help fighting dragons in Siberia or something. That's life."

It's almost imperceptible, but she can see the muscles in his jaw relax. "A cell phone," he says, testing the words.

"A cell phone," she agrees, squeezing his hand. "And one hell of a durable case."


End file.
